The Return

 "But now this is what the Lord says: 'Do not weep any longer, for I will reward you,' says the Lord. 'Your children will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy. There is hope for your future,' says the Lord.

'Your children will come again to their own land.' " Jeremiah 31:16-17

Twenty five years ago I purchased a video set entitled "First Love." It was a chronicle of the Jesus Movement of the 1960's and 70's, a movement that swept me, and hundreds of thousands of others into it. A number of singers and musicians who were much used by God in that movement came together to sing and tell their stories of that time and into the present. As I watched, my heart was deeply stirred, and I began to cry out to Him that He would "do it again." Twenty five years. A quarter of a lifetime. A long time to wait, but I think He may be "doing it again," but in a new and fresh way.

So many of us in the time of the Jesus Revolution as it was called, were disaffected, without hope, and held captive by a myriad of addictions and destructive tendencies. Jesus took hold of a generation, and it changed the church and the culture. Today, in places like Asbury College, Lee University, and a host of other Christian and even secular campuses, the Holy Spirit is moving, and it is beginning through the current youth of our culture, just as it did more than 50 years ago. I believe we will see once more, "our children returning from the land where they've been held captive." 

Jeremiah 31 addresses a people who had been widely scattered as a result of their sin and rebellion. They'd been taken captive by the Assyrian empire and dispersed throughout its boundaries. God was telling them that He would do a work that would bring these exiled captives "home" to Israel. In the same way, we are in the midst of a widely scattered, disaffected, cynical, culture of youth who see nothing of real worth to believe in. I think these moves of the Holy Spirit that are happening throughout our nation and moving out into the nations, are going to be bringing many, very many young people "home" to not only their loved ones, but to the God and Creator who loves them above all. The fires are burning, the Spirit is moving and blowing. Lives are being transformed, set free, and made new. I pray it is only the beginning.

Volumes could be written on this, and possibly will be written, but I want to add something here. Churches are filled with parents and grandparents whose children are living as exiles in the land of the enemy. The burden they carry for them is great. If you are one of them, take heart. He is moving to bring the exiles, your exiles, home. Surrender them to Him and trust Him with them. He knows the way home even if they do not. He is faithful. Claim His promises. Yield to Him, trust Him, obey Him. Whatever failures you may have had in their getting to the land of the enemy, confess them, repent of them, and let Him redeem them. And behold what He does as He works to bring them home from the land of the enemy.....to His land. Kingdom land. Your land, and theirs as well.

Blessings,

Pastor O